Controlled traffic for vegetable production: Part 1. Machinery challenges and options in a diversified vegetable industry

Controlled traffic farming (CTF) maintains the same machinery wheel tracks in cropping fields year after year, thereby isolating the impacts of traffic compaction from the soil used for crop growth. Benefits of CTF include improved energy efficiency, soil health, crop yield, timeliness and economics.

The successful adoption of CTF in the Australian grain and cane industries has been largely based on a limited equipment suite and flat to mildly sloping topography. The Tasmanian vegetable industry faces a very different scenario, with a wide diversity of machinery, and topography ranging from gently to steeply undulating.

Two key technical challenges to the adoption of CTF in vegetable and mixed cropping were investigated – 1) working and track width compatibility of current equipment, and 2) farm layouts suited to steeply undulating topography.

Almost no machines are currently compatible with a common track or working width, although some are suitable for modification to enable CTF operation. Some harvest machinery (e.g. single row potato harvesters) provides few options for change. Seasonal CTF represents a possible starting place for adoption until more compatible machinery is available.

Findings in relation to farm layouts are reported in a companion paper (McPhee, Neale, & Aird, 2013).